Bounc­ing back from the ‘bust up’ blues

No one is im­mune from the ol’ bust-up-of-a-re­la­tion­ship blues, not even the ef­fer­ves­cent Lola.

In the lat­est Lola out­ing, on stage this week, ev­ery­one’s favourite an­drog­y­nous en­ter­tainer finds him­self in some­thing of a funk. Lost in limbo, Lola finds him­self con­signed to an emo­tional pur­ga­tory af­ter a ro­mance de­rails.

It’s a show named, ap­pro­pri­ately enough, Lola’s Grave Mis­take

‘‘He has to find a way to es­cape the space that peo­ple find them­selves in at the end of a long-term re­la­tion­ship - when you’re wan­der­ing around in the wilder­ness be­fore the epiphany hap­pens and you can move on.’’

Lola’s ‘‘spokesper­son’’ Ian Har­man, said what hap­pens at the end­ing of a re­la­tion­ship is the in­spi­ra­tion be­hind the show - some­thing most peo­ple could re­late to.

‘‘They’ll be able to say ‘Yeah, I know that space’, where you spend time re­hash­ing the mis­takes made in a re­la­tion­ship - and then some­thing hap­pens to let you out of the the sit­u­a­tion.’’

That’s not to say the cabaret­style show is go­ing to be overly mor­bid or down.

‘‘It’s all com­ing from an en­ter­tain­ment point of view. It’s story driven and way more nar­ra­tive than Lola’s pre­vi­ous solo shows.’’

Putting it to­gether has been a ’’daunt­ing, but ex­cit­ing’’ process.

To make sure ev­ery­thing is on track, Har­man has sought out­side views on the show’s con­tent and style, adapt­ing its shape to the feed­back he’s re­ceived.

This time there will be a dif­fer­ent style of mu­sic.

A col­lec­tion of 13 slightly Texmex rock­a­billy style songs will pro­vide the flavour of a desert ex­pe­ri­ence, while there are el­e­ments that re­flect themes as­so­ci­ated with the Mex­i­can Day of the Dead. Will there be any stage magic? ‘‘Let’s say it has magic to die for.’’

That’s all Har­man would re­veal when asked whether it would in­cor­po­rate some of Lola’s fa­mous sleight-of-hand pres­tidig­i­ta­tion.

Fol­low­ing the three 8pm per­for­mances of Lola’s Grave Mis­take on Septem­ber 15, 16 and 17, Har­man is tak­ing the show for a two-night sea­son at the Fringe Bar in Welling­ton where Lola is also de­vel­op­ing a fol­low­ing.

Book­ings for this week’s Palmer­ston North shows are through Cen­tre­point Theatre.

PHOTO: BER­NADETTE PETERS/SUP­PLIED

Lola ends up in re­la­tion­ship limbo in the new solo cabaret per­for­mance, but finds a way out and up dur­ing a three night sea­son in the Dark Room.